The presumptive first pick of next week’s NBA Draft has been preparing for this moment for at least a half-decade, and probably more. When you are that talented and grow up in the United States’ system of high school and AAU basketball, you start preparing for your crowning moment early. There is nothing wrong with that. But it is the way it is.

Solomon Alabi? Well, the potential first-round pick is the antithesis of that.

“When I started playing, I never played on basketball courts,” Alabi, a 7-foot-1 centre from Kaduna, Nigeria, said as he came through Toronto on Tuesday for a draft workout. “I played on a court with dirt on the ground. They didn’t even have concrete on the floor.”

Alabi, surely, has not been funneled through the American star system. Instead, he has taken a little-used route to the precipice of the league.

Masai Ujiri, the Toronto Raptors assistant general manager of player personnel, first spotted Alabi at a big man camp he was running in Zaria, Nigeria. Thanks to that camp, as well as the NBA-run Basketball Without Borders, Alabi has emerged as an unlikely candidate to be picked in the first round of the Draft.

After impressing in Nigeria, Alabi came to America, going to Montverde Academy, near Orlando. His play there earned him a scholarship to Florida State University.

“At the NBA level, Solomon would be one of the first,” Ujiri said. “You think about it and you’re very proud of it.”

“That’s where I first got exposed to well-organized basketball,” Alabi added of Ujiri’s camp and Basketball Without Borders. “That’s what really encouraged me to play basketball more. Through Basketball Without Borders I came to America and got a scholarship offer to go to school and play basketball.”

Unsurprisingly for a kid who did not grow up playing the game in an organized fashion, Alabi remains a bit of a project. Neither he nor Marshall’s Hassan Whiteside, who also worked out in Toronto on Tuesday, would seem ready to be a significant contributor immediately. And the Raptors, at the 13th pick, likely want a player ready to play now.

Still, his impact on the game, provided he does land on an NBA roster, should be greater than your typical late first-rounder.

“It’s a great example for the kids,” Ujiri said. “There are so many of them. With a country like Nigeria and a continent like Africa and the population there, there are so many kids. We just need the facilities and you guys to promote the game a little bit and we can build some more courts over there and grow the game better.”

Along with Whiteside and Alabi, two swingmen, South Florida’s Dominique Jones and Cincinnati’s Lance Stephenson, also worked out. The Raptors have another draft workout scheduled for Thursday.

Raptors Jarrett Jack, DeMar DeRozan, Amir Johnson, Sonny Weems and Joey Dorsey were also at the Air Canada Centre working out.